August Unknown

by Pamela Fryer

  Unlikely.

  “It wasn’t easy.” Chelsie’s beautiful black hair swirled around her shoulders, rippling with the jerk of her arm as she thrust the knife forward. “They’d listed you as a traffic accident victim. A hacker I know gave me every drowning and Jane Doe record in Washington, Oregon, and California. I almost didn’t come down here to check it out, but the Newport police were so secretive about your file, I knew something was strange. And low and behold, here you are.”

  Emily forced away the choking fear. “What do you want?”

  Chelsie advanced, urging Emily toward the other side of the pier. “Get on the boat. Your new boyfriend won’t mind.”

  How did she know it was Geoffrey’s boat? Emily’s mind whirled with confusion as she shuffled sideways, her gaze never leaving Chelsie’s.

  Chelsie glanced once over her shoulder. “Hurry it up!” She lunged forward, urging Emily on with threatening jabs. Once Emily mounted the dock step, Chelsie knelt and unraveled the mooring lines from their cleats.

  “You just have to bat your little eyelashes and they come drooling at your heels, don’t they?”

  What was she talking about? Chelsie looked different than Emily had ever seen her. There was something in her eyes, something dark she’d never noticed before.

  “What do you want, Chelsie?” she asked again, louder this time.

  Chelsie stepped up onto Penny Lane’s deck, that knife thrust out the whole time. “Shout like that again, and I’ll cut your tongue out. Now get down in the cabin. We’re going for a little ride, you and me.”

  Chelsie shoved her when she was on the ladder, sending Emily staggering to her knees onto the small cabin’s floor.

  “The keys are in that drawer. Get up. I didn’t push you that hard.”

  “Chelsie, whatever you want, we can talk this through—”

  “Shut up! We’re going to talk, all right. I just want to be sure we don’t get interrupted.”

  “We can’t take this boat out of the harbor!”

  “Sure we can.” Chelsie narrowed her eyes. “Keys are right there, in that drawer. Easy now. Don’t try anything, or I’ll cut that pretty face to ribbons.”

  She waited as Emily opened the drawer and retrieved the motor key. Geoffrey used a banana slug, the buoyant, yellow key fob that kept a sailor’s keys from sinking if they fell in the water. Chelsie had obviously been in the boat before, and the key fob identified the motor key at first glance.

  “Let’s go. Up top.”

  Emily put the keys in her left hand and used her right to hold the ladder’s rail on the way back up. Her mind raced with the possibilities. The night on the Maraschino was still murky, but now she remembered red-haired Sonja.

  I’m pregnant...I’m pregnant.

  Think! What else happened?

  “Was it you in the beach house that morning?”

  Chelsie laughed. “Start the motor.” She kept a steely eye on Emily as she released the ropes from the deck cleats on Penny Lane’s starboard side. “Take us out.”

  “Chelsie, no, this is crazy—”

  Chelsie’s eyes blazed. She surged forward and lashed out, nicking Emily on the side of her jaw with the tip of the blade.

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that! I’ve put up with your sanctimonious bullshit for long enough.”

  Emily winced and staggered back, but Chelsie gripped a fistful of her shirt and yanked her back to the wheel.

  “Okay! Okay, Chelsie, take it easy.”

  Emily searched the pier, but no one else was around. Surely there must be people who lived on their boats. If she screamed, could someone get to her in time? Would anyone even hear? Or would it anger Chelsie into slashing her with the knife?

  “I see you remember how to sail,” Chelsie said as Emily backed Penny Lane out of the slip. “What else do you remember that you aren’t telling me?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Emily clawed at her memory. What had happened that stormy day on Maraschino’s deck?

  She had little time to remember. Chelsie stepped forward and reversed the throttle for her, and then gave the wheel a spin. Penny Lane started a slow trail out of the marina.

  A sudden squall, pouring rain, waves topped with white caps. Seven seasick passengers, all of whom had drunk too much and loitered too long on Hutchison’s Island. They were scared, nauseated, full of regret. But there was no danger; Maraschino could hold her own in a storm twice as fierce...

  * * *

  Indecision rolled through Geoffrey as he drove, and he nearly turned around a dozen times. If she wanted to be alone, why was he crowding her?

  He just wanted to explain that he wouldn’t crowd her, and then he’d go home and find some cold cream to help Derek wash the ink off his face. He smiled again as he thought of that mustache.

  He pulled his SUV into the Mermaid’s lot and parked beside Emily’s red Honda. He stepped out into the brisk morning and tried the front door. It was locked. Maybe she’d gone to sleep? She certainly hadn’t gotten much sleep last night.

  He grinned like a fool at his own reflection in the glass. Neither of them had gotten much sleep. He stepped back and looked up at the small, second-floor window. Maybe she was taking a bath in Gran Millie’s old clawfoot?

  This was a mistake. He should leave her alone if that was what she wanted. He turned back to the SUV.

  “Where’s Emily?”

  He recognized the demanding voice before he saw the stocky young man emerge through the mist.

  Colin. The guy was like a gnat you couldn’t get rid of. He made no effort to conceal his anger.

  “She left her parents’ house yesterday, but she’s not answering her cell phone.”

  Above his annoyance, a pleasantly warm vapor crept over Geoffrey. Emily had turned off her phone so they wouldn’t be disturbed.

  “Was she with you last night?” Colin advanced steadily, trying to be intimidating. Geoffrey stood his ground, and the other man stopped a few paces away.

  “You need to ask Emily where she stayed last night. If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”

  “Why can’t you back off, man? She’s confused and you’re making it worse.”

  Geoffrey said nothing.

  Colin balled his hands into fists. “You’re setting yourself up for a fall. Take the easy way out, dude. Trust me on that. You think you’re the first guy to come sniffing around with an eye for Emily? There’ve been others, plenty others, but it’s me she always stays with.”

  “If you’re so confident, why are you here?”

  Colin scowled and glanced away. Geoffrey could see he was teetering between worry and fury.

  “It isn’t the same this time. She was hurt, and still doesn’t really know what happened—”

  “What did happen, Colin?” Geoffrey advanced a step. “Why was she arguing with her best friend?”

  Colin wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  That got the other man’s attention.

  “You might as well come clean. She’s going to remember, sooner or later.”

  Colin’s scowl deepened. “Did you stop to think about what you’re doing to Emily? Of what she’s going through with you messing with her head?” He pointed a finger accusingly. “Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you can give her a better life. She doesn’t need to live in a glass house, she likes the life she had. Things were good in Astoria before she met you. The most expensive truck on the planet and a bigger diamond doesn’t mean you’re the better man for her.”

  Colin advanced, turning his jabbing finger to his own chest as he spoke. “I’m the one who stood by her after her old man started drinking. I’m the one who gave her the life she wants. Northern Expeditions was her family’s before my father bought it, and it’ll be hers again when we get married.”

  Geoffrey refused to be intimidated by an arrogant kid with a hot temper. Colin was burly, but he was too, and taller by at
least four inches. “All right, I’ll make you a deal. You look me straight in the eye and tell me everything was perfect with your relationship, and I’ll step down.” His heart leaped with his daring.

  Colin’s eyes narrowed and he stared hard for a long minute. Then he glanced away, a muscle working in his jaw.

  “You wouldn’t be here right now if there wasn’t something in your past that might drive her away,” Geoffrey continued before the other man could accept his foolish wager. “You’re just hoping to convince her back to Astoria because you want me out of sight and out of mind. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Emily, she’s smart. Do you really think she’d be happy to hear you’re interfering with her decision?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing.”

  “I think I do. In fact, I’ll bet it’s probably something you did, and you want to keep her from finding—”

  Geoffrey froze. He stepped past Colin, staring through the fog. A small sloop with familiar lines motored slowly out of the marina. He strained to see the spot where Penny Lane was usually visible from the Mirthful Mermaid’s doorway, past the edge of the marina’s cinderblock restrooms. He couldn’t be sure, but the slip beside his neighbor’s Yankawa Express looked empty.

  “Oh no.”

  “What is it?” Colin’s voice held a hint of alarm, as though he knew Geoffrey’s trepidation concerned Emily.

  He was right.

  “My boat is leaving the marina.”

  * * *

  “Nice place your boyfriend’s got. Were you going to string him along forever, like you’ve done to Colin all these years?”

  “It was you that day.”

  “And it was me in the alley that night, too.”

  “Why, Chelsie?”

  Why? Why, why, why...think, dammit! What happened between them that was so horrible Chelsie wanted to kill her?

  In an instant, one thing was clear; she hadn’t been afraid of the red-haired woman—Sonja—she’d been aghast. A glimpse of that night on Maraschino flashed through her mind.

  “Why do you think?” Chelsie snapped, dragging her away from the memory she fought to reclaim.

  “Colin?”

  “Of course, Colin,” Chelsie hissed. “It’s always been Colin.”

  Colin! But how? When? Was it something so horrible she would never remember?

  “...Emily, help Sonja bring in the storm sail and batten ’er down. We’ll motor the rest of the way. These kids are too sick for half-reefed sails. And could you secure that loose winch? I should’ve had that thing fixed weeks ago.”

  “Sure, Graham. You’ve just got to be gentle with it. Let me get my lifejacket.”

  She’d gone up on deck. Joe was forward, Sonja at the mizzen. Her longtime friend looked up and saw her. She hesitated, tormented contemplation on her face, before she changed her mind and edged closer on the slippery deck.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Sonja, what’s been eating you these past few days?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I don’t. But I’m sick of this. Just say it, or get over it.”

  “I’m pregnant. It’s Colin’s. We were together the night of the Spring Fling.”

  Emily closed her eyes. Molten anguish flooded her gut as she relived it, exactly as it had that stormy afternoon on Maraschino. Sonja was pregnant, and the baby was Colin’s.

  Sonja, water streaming down her face, her red hair in soaking wet strands. “You don’t want to marry him. If you did, you wouldn’t have refused to set a date all these years. Let him go, so he can do right by this baby.”

  Emily hadn’t known what to say.

  “You don’t love him, don’t need him. Do the right thing and bow out.”

  The memory suddenly came clear. At that moment on deck, with the sea tossing and the sky growling, Emily had realized she knew exactly when Colin and Sonja had gone off together at Spring Fling.

  “You wretched bitch. How could you do that to me? You’re my best friend. And you’re wrong, I do love him. But you can have him. You two deserve each other.”

  “Emily, we didn’t mean to—”

  “Spare me the excuses. 2We didn’t mean to.’ Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “I never wanted to hurt you.”

  “Get out of my sight. I never want to see either of you again.”

  Emily stared into the milky whiteness in front of Penny Lane with unseeing eyes. She had taken off her engagement ring and dropped it in the electronics compartment. Warm drops mixed with the cold rain on her face as her tears gushed. She remembered wiping them away with the back of her hand, ashamed. Colin and Sonja had played her for a fool.

  “Nice try.” Chelsie shoved her aside. She adjusted the wheel and Penny Lane glided out of the path of a harbor buoy.

  “You really don’t remember, do you?”

  Poor Sonja. Desperate, alone, pregnant. In the face of peril, Emily’s anger toward her best friend suddenly vanished. None of that mattered now that she was staring down the pointed end of a hunting knife. She would never get the chance to tell her best friend she forgave her.

  “You know they blamed Sonja, but the police didn’t have anything to hold her on. Not yet, anyway.”

  She knew that much from what Colin had told her, only now she understood why he had believed Sonja responsible so intently.

  Chelsie’s words echoed in her mind and their deadly intent rang clear. Not yet, anyway.

  Emily caught her breath as she steadied herself on Penny Lane’s lifeline. “What do you mean?”

  “If you don’t remember what happened...” Chelsie looked her up and down with surprised disbelief. “And you clearly don’t...then you haven’t told anyone she didn’t push you.”

  Emily swallowed. “I do remember. I told Geoffrey.”

  Chelsie laughed. “You always were a lousy liar.”

  “What are you going to do?” Emily finally found the courage to ask the question. She needed to know what was planned for her. It was obvious, but she wanted to hear Chelsie say it.

  “I’m going to finish what I started that night, of course. You were supposed to drown.”

  Emily gasped and backed away. The backs of her knees collided with the low roof to the main cabin. There was no place to run, no place to hide. Penny Lane’s small dinghy was secured astern. Even if she could get to it, she’d never get it down with only one hand, and certainly not with a crazed slasher hot on her heels.

  Chelsie only laughed. “Going to make it easy for me and jump?” She took a plastic ziplock baggie from her pocket and unsealed it. “This time they’ll have the evidence they need to send Sonja away.”

  Emily watched in horror as she removed a small clump of red hair and jammed it into the crevasse under a bolt on the compass. Sonja’s hair.

  “She’s pregnant, you know,” Emily said. If she could convince Chelsie that Sonja was her biggest problem, she might let her go.

  Chelsie seemed unimpressed. “Thanks to you, everyone knows that.”

  “You can’t keep her from Colin if she’s going to have his baby.”

  “Not for long, she isn’t.”

  The breath rushed from her lungs. Chelsie only laughed at the horror on her face.

  “She’s driving into Seattle this morning to see a prenatal paternity specialist for an appointment I was helpful enough to set up for her...at an office that doesn’t exist.” Chelsie grinned wickedly. “When she finally gets home, there’ll be nobody to back up her claim that she wasn’t here, drowning you. But before she even learns you’ve died, I’ll wager she helps herself to a big glass of milk. Calcium is good for the baby, you know. As soon as she drinks from the carton in her refrigerator, she won’t be pregnant for long.”

  “You’re a monster,” Emily screamed. “Why?”

  Chelsie’s eyes gleamed, lit with fury. “Because Sonja isn’t the only one your darling fiancé knocked up, but I aim to be the last one standing. It’s me a
nd my baby Colin’s going to end up with.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jose opened the Mirthful Mermaid’s door behind them. “You looking for Gran Millie?”

  “Where’s Emily?” Geoffrey demanded.

  “Miss August? She go to marina.”

  Geoffrey set off at a sprint across the road and down the ice plant covered hill to the marina’s sidewalk. Colin stayed with him the whole way. The gate to pier fifteen sat ajar on its frame. He didn’t need to enter his code.

  “Why would she take your boat out?” Colin asked.

  “She wouldn’t. She couldn’t, not alone.”

  He strained to see through the fog as he ran to the end of the pier. Penny Lane’s carved wooden nameplate disappeared into the fog-shrouded bay. He didn’t need to read it to recognize his own boat, and the empty slip confirmed it beyond a doubt.

  “There are two people on deck,” Colin stated.

  “I can see that,” Geoffrey growled. As soon as he said it, Penny Lane was swallowed in the mist. Like a mournful farewell, the hum of her motor faded to nothingness.

  Geoffrey turned around and started back up the pier. He took out his cell phone and dialed 911. “I need Coast Guard emergency services, fast.”

  He nearly barreled over Trenton Farwell on the way up the steep ramp to the gate.

  “Whoa, Geoffrey, where’s the fire?”

  The Coast Guard put him on hold. “Trenton, I need to borrow your boat. It’s an emergency.”

  “Sure, sure thing. What’s going on?”

  Colin stomped up the pier behind him. “I’m going with you.”

  Geoffrey ignored him. There was no point arguing with him. “Emily may have been kidnapped.”

  “That cute little blond? I thought her name was—”

  “Trent, we need to go now!”

  Trenton was pushing eighty, but he kept pace with Geoffrey as they ran to gate nine. He leaped onto his boat as Geoffrey untied the lines port side and Colin unfastened starboard.

  Feeling their urgency, Trenton wasted no time. His restored Seahawk roared to life. The old man reversed out of his slip and throttled out of the harbor at illegal speed, rocking sleeping boats with his wake.